Friday, August 19, 2011

Spelling and grammar in ERAS

Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors can ruin your residency application. Even if you have great USMLE scores, strong letters of recommendation, and lots of U.S. clinical experience, the residency directors will read your personal statement and Common Application Form to learn what kind of person you are. If they see that you didn't take the time to spellcheck everything in ERAS, or if you use poor grammar in your personal statement, the residency directors might think that you're lazy or sloppy. Would you hire a lazy or sloppy doctor?

This is a professional application for the most important step of your medical training so far. This is not Twitter; this is not Facebook; this is not a text message. Proper capitalization, spelling, punctuation, and grammar are extremely important from now through Match Day. That includes everything you send through ERAS, as well as all email correspondence and thank-you notes.

This is also true for your letters of recommendation. Sometimes your advisors and mentors will ask you to prepare a rough draft. Do you know what should be included in a letter of recommendation, and what should not be there? Are you able to write a proper and professional LOR? I can help you with that too.

If English is not your first language, or even if you've been speaking English your entire life but were too busy learning medicine to focus on the rules of grammar, you need to have your entire application reviewed. I am happy to offer you a free consultation; send me your CAF and personal statement, and I will share my preliminary thoughts with you at no charge.